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Multiple reports confirm that Planned Parenthood videos were not manipulated

Planned Parenthood has been called out on social media for its deception and spin when it comes to… well, pretty much everything. But in this case, Planned Parenthood Action Fund claimed that the Center for Medical Progress’s undercover videos featuring Planned Parenthood’s own employees were “faked criminal videos.”

Since faked criminal videos hit, politicians in 24 states have tried to cut patients' access to Planned Parenthood. pic.twitter.com/P5fO652lqy

In January, a Texas grand jury indicted activists who exposed Planned Parenthood’s fetal organ trafficking. The government’s “indict the messenger” approach in these cases was of course applauded by Planned Parenthood, which is pushing more lies as a result.

The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway tweeted in response:

@PPact your own audit of the videos admitted that 100% of what @ppact employees said in videos was real.

Mollie is right. As I reported in September 2015, Planned Parenthood hired Fusion GPS, known to be “an opposition research firm with ties to the Democratic party and… a history of harassing socially conservative Republican donors, possibly on behalf of the Obama campaign.” But in their report on the videos, the firm found “no evidence that the anti-abortion group behind the attack made up dialogue,” and no “widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation.” So what did Planned Parenthood do in response? What they always do: deny the facts, and get the media to go along with the ruse. (Politico’s headline even stated that Fusion’s report found evidence of manipulation, when, in fact, it did not.)

But Fusion GPS wasn’t the only firm that found no manipulation. Coalfire Systems, a cybersecurity and forensic analysis company hired by Alliance Defending Freedom, analyzed all ten (at the time) full footage videos and found that the videos were “authentic and show no evidence of manipulation or editing.” In fact, Casey Mattox, ADF’s senior counsel, had some words in response to Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s claim about the videos on Twitter:

Yes. They do know that. In fact, Cecile Richards herself apologized for the “tone” used by Planned Parenthood senior medical director Dr. Deborah Nucatola (in the first of CMP’s undercover videos) while discussing how she is careful to only “crush” above and below the abdomen of a child whom she is aborting, to best preserve his or her organs for harvesting. Note that Richards apologized not for Nucatola’s actions but for her “tone” in casualness of speech. If that video was “faked,” and that’s not really Dr. Nucatola, and she didn’t say what she clearly appears to have said, then why the apology?

Planned Parenthood and its friends in the media have also been pretending that CMP’s David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt were indicted by a Texas grand jury for faking videos – but that’s nowhere close to the truth. Daleiden and Merritt were indicted for tampering with government documents (likely faked driver’s licenses for the facilities they infiltrated), and for… get this… attempting to buy fetal body parts — which one would have to pretend to do in order to catch criminals who are willing to sell. As Live Action News’ Cassy Fiano noted (emphasis mine):

A grand jury is formed of ordinary citizens that are presented evidence and testimony from the prosecutor alone to form their theory of a case without any input from the defense.

From that information, the jury determines if there is enough probable cause to move the case forward in the judicial process. The grand jury does not determine guilt or innocence.

They also know that if you repeat a lie loudly enough and long enough, people will start to believe it – all evidence to the contrary. So, while friends of Planned Parenthood attempt to compare the Center for Medical Progress videos and evidence to conspiracies about the moon landing, pro-lifers have to continue to counter the spin to those who would listen.